My Stop Picking Journal

Like many of you on this site I have an obsession with picking cysts on my face, and getting all that clumpy ***** out of my pores via squeezing two fingers over it and damaging the skin.

I am only 18, I have been doing this for about 2 years now, and I have had enough.

At times I would go on breaks for about a month and just as I thought I stopped for good I found myself back in front of the mirror picking again.

I am not a quitter - I will not go to my doctor and talk about him so he can fix it with medication, I am going to fix myself, and although it didn't work in the past I still stopped for long periods of time and I know im strong enough to stop for good - im just using this site as a stronghold to vent my frustrations about it.

So I am coming here and posting this journal, it will consist of 7 days from today (Wednesday July 2nd) until next wednesday (July 9th) which is ironic because I have court on that date.

I am pretty positive that I will get this bad habit eliminated and it will be here for all you other pickers out there to use in aiding your motivation to stop ruining your face like I once was.

From this day on I look at myself as a non-picker, and I believe I am a non-picker because if you dont then you will be locked mentally into continuing your picking rampage.

Here is a list of things I am going to do on my 7 day journal to make sure I dont pick:

- Always stay busy. Whether its reading a book or getting a tan, chatting or making a song, im going to keep busy and occupied so that I have no time to pick.
- I am going to use the egg yolk twice a day on my face (this method of acne treatment is amazing, and its highly recommended).
- I am going to stand back from the mirror when I brush my teeth and wash my face so I cant see the bumps and cysts underneath the skin (what I believe triggers that "itch" or "need" to pick and burst puss from out of the skin.
- I am not going to think about picking at all, if you dont think about it you wont do it.

So tonight im going to post a message telling how I stayed from picking today and what positive things I did to help make myself forget about it.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to journal with me in case u wanna stop too.

Do a search for this and you will find a thread where many people did this, it cleared them beautifully for a couple weeks or a month or so, and then broke them out. It leaves a film on your face that builds up in your pores. I imagine it took forever for them to get all the gunk out, luckily I read the whole thread before I actually started doing this.

But other than that, everything you're doing sounds like a really good idea- I may join in with you because I am starting to get a bad picking habit too. I just started using Skinoren (which brings everything to the surface) and now that alot of zits are just "sitting" there, I'm tempted to pick.

Hey good for you! I am also trying to kick the habit. My latest attempt started this past Saturday and it's been 5 days without picking for me! I have noticed that some of my pimples are slowing fading away and the the skin is healing better than it normally would after I picke them. I hope I can keep this going!

Hey I'm gonna support you on this one. I have tried so hard to stop picking and it doesn't matter how much I promise myself that I'm not gonna do it, I still do. For me the first step is recognising that I have a problem. What I have been doing for 3 days is steaming my face. I haven't picked any spots on my face in this time either. Once I've steamed the whiteheads are really soft to the point where if you push them they burst. Straight afterwards I splash pure lemon or lime juice on my face. This seems to make the whitehead disappear. Exactly a minute or two later I wash my face with cold water. Believe me once you've done this your complexion looks great and your skin feels soft. I don't use any cleaning products because it always aggrivates my skin. I will come back to this post when I feel like giving in to picking.

I used the egg yolk thing and it works great, despite what one person said on here im wiping it off my face very good so it wont clog or fill up pores after.

I didn't even think about picking, I stayed strong and I didn't even go close to the mirror when I brushed my teeth and washed my face.

I just chilled the whole day and smoked some weed with my buddies, we went out and I had to wear a bandana covering my forehead because of how bad I made it look, but the egg yolk seems to be working, and i've been getting quite a suntan which also covers it up and makes me look better!

Thats all, I feel good and I know im gonna drop this bad horrible habit, peace.

I'm really glad you're posting your journal: the exposition is level-headed (pun!) and inspiringly optimistic. But I'm wondering if smoking weed might provoke your skin to retalliate against your efforts. Maybe the calming effect of smoking, by lessening the urge to pick, equiponderates whatever new zits the drug produces; I just know that when I took Ephedra, my skin was a mess--then again, adrenaline tends to have that effect. But it seems like a lot of toxins are excreted by the skin.